A Bad Sign or A Good One?
by Roshelle Diall
Summary: Ren finds a creative writing project Kyouko has to do for school and what he learns surprises him. Fluffy ONESHOT based on a Skip Beat quote from Chapter 171.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Skip Beat or its characters even though I now own two volumes. I also do not own most of the poem. That honor goes to the movie Ten Things I Hate About You.**

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"**I realized then that it was a bad sign. That's why I firmly sealed the box with the locks that had snapped off. But in spite of that, in the blink of an eye he so easily unlocked them again. It almost makes me feel like hating him." -Mogami Kyouko in Skip Beat Ch 171**

Kyouko was hard at work at the living room table while Ren finished putting the dishes away. It had been a week since he had seen her last. With a phone call, he convinced her to come cook dinner for him. She had work to finish from school so he said she could kill two birds with one stone and bring her laptop over to finish it up since he had a fast wireless connection. Besides, she did have some of her stuff in the guest room. She called the Okami at Daruma-ya and let her know where she would be.

Reading over her creative writing assignment one more time she couldn't figure out how to come up with ideas, never mind a whole Powerpoint presentation. Her assignment was to come up with a poem that conveyed an emotion about a person that was either a friend or an enemy. She had wanted to do one about Mouko, but realized that there were too many flowery feelings and she might not be able to do it without a full-on battle with her demons. She could have done one on that baka Shoutaro but he wasn't worth spending a second of her time on.

She sat in thought for almost half an hour before she came up with an idea. Staring into space her thoughts focused on Ren. No matter how many times she tried to relock that blasted box every time he looked at her a certain way or spoke to her in a certain voice the locks were so easily unlocked.

_'I hate that it keeps on happening. I want to hate him for doing it, but of course I can't. I can't have him either and I hate that too. Still, there's no point in letting him know how I'm feeling. This is bad. I don't like feeling trapped by this emotion.'_

Letting out a sigh of annoyance, she sat there, furiously writing until the poem was done. She then began crossing out lines and re-writing new words. Satisfied with the finished product she kept reading it out loud. By the time it came together the clock was displaying 1 am and she could hardly keep her eyes open. She started to get up to go to bed and decided against it, turning on the computer instead.

"I better start looking up the pictures that I want to put in my presentation." She said to the empty living room.

She found pictures of onigiri, puppies, a cell phone and a star with "#1" inside of it. As long as the teacher saw the words that she used in her poem she could use whatever pictures she wanted. She played with the idea of finding a picture of him and his fake smile online.

'_That shouldn't be hard. I would just need to find the latest Armandy ad.'_

She sat looking at her poem again until the words started swimming in front of her. She still needed to find a couple of pictures but thought better of it.

'_I better get up and go to bed._' Instead, she put her head down on the table and fell asleep as the clock read 2:30.

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Laying in his California King bed, Ren could not get to sleep. Knowing that the woman he loved was less than 50 feet away, completely unaware of his feelings was making him restless. He tossed and turned trying to get comfortable but nothing was helping.

_'Maybe I should finally just go and tell her. What's the worst that could happen? No way! I could just imagine her reaction. She would never want to be around me and I can't have that._'

He decided to go check on her and make sure all of the lights were out. As he padded to the living room, he saw that she had fallen asleep on the table. Her laptop was still on and there were notebooks on the floor and on the table. He wasn't sure if she had something she wanted to save so he had to wake her up. As he was about to reach over to wake her up, the poem caught his eye.

_'I don't see her as the poetry writing type so she'll definitely run it by me in the morning to make sure it's good. Might as well get an idea of what she's saying._'

He looked down at the page and read:

I hate how you insist on driving me in your car,

I hate that you're out of my reach as the #1 star.

I hate how bad you eat when I'm not there,

And that you keep blowing through my defenses,

It isn't even fair.

I hate your fake gentleman's smile,

And the way you put me at ease.

I hate how you use those puppy dog eyes,

And that I'm the only one you tease.

I hate the way you're always right,

I hate it when you lie.

I hate it when you make me laugh,

I hate when you see me cry.

I hate it when you're not around,

I hate when you don't call.

But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you,

Not even close…

Not even a little bit…

Not at all.

He looked up from the page and let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. There was no doubt in his mind that she was talking about him. Even though he saw the word hate on pretty much every line, the phrases "blowing through my defenses" and "I don't hate you even a little bit" kept running through his mind. Dare he see a deeper meaning to it? Should he be optimistic and consider this a confession?

'_It's true that we are friends but perhaps she sees me as more than that after all. I'll take it. At least it's a little bit of progress._' His mood instantly brightened as he reached over to wake her up.

"Kyouko, wake up. You'll get sick if you sleep here." he said as he gently shook her.

She sat up and blinked her eyes. "Oh my goodness! I fell asleep! I'm sooo sorry Tsuruga-san! I left my computer on and I'm wasting power and I even left a mess!" She said flustered.

"It's okay. I didn't want to erase any work you already had done," He paused, "Otherwise I would have just carried you to the bed." He said letting a little of the Emperor shine through.

She blushed as she imagined being carried princess style to the guest bed, being in his arms with her head resting on his chest. He would put her down and she would reach up and...she shook her head to clear her wandering thoughts.

"Thank you so much! I haven't saved the last two pictures yet. I'll clean up my mess too." putting the notebooks in her schoolbag. "Leave it to me. Good night Tsuruga-san."

"Good night." He said walking back to his room. Smiling he got into bed and looked over at the clock. It was now 3:30. '_At least I don't have anything scheduled until the afternoon.'_ he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

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**A/N: Thank you for reading! Inspiration came to me and I wanted to run with it so I hope that you enjoyed it. **


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